


More Tales of Briinah

by Alice_in_Black



Series: Briinah [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, Chapter Four, Chapter one, Chapter three, Chapter two, Coming Soon - Freeform, Fluff, Goodbyes, Multi, Pre-Relationship, sort of shippy but not?, tags relationships and characters will be updated with each addition, the sail's up but it's not leaving the harbor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-01-08 22:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12263667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_in_Black/pseuds/Alice_in_Black
Summary: Additional drabbles and smaller prompts relating to Briinah's Story, Spirit of Skyrim, etc. Some have been posted elsewhere previously, some will be new, but I really did just needed to get them all in one place.Check tags for descriptions of each chapter. Otherwise:Ch. 1 "Darling" - Thrynn/original female characterCh. 2 "Whatever Love Is" - Cicero/original female characterCh. 3 "A Flair For the Dramatic" - Cicero & male DragonbornCh. 4 "Fifth of Last Seed, 4E 192" - Male Dragonborn & original female character





	1. Darling

_Darling - The prompt was "flowers in beards." Takes place about chapter 12-13 of Briinah's Story. Pre-relationship "they're basically dating already" phase of Brina/Thrynn._

Really, the trade between worrying about what trouble she’d get into and having to swallow his pride for an evening was entirely worth it. Considering the shenanigans she normally got into after this much mead, it was actually a relief. No pulling her down from rooftops, no chasing her wasted ass through the sewers, no trying to figure out how in Oblivion she got herself stuck on the statue of Talos.

Rather than rescuing her from whatever intoxicated adventure she got into, Thrynn was sitting on the edge of the central platform in the Cistern, Brina swaying on his lap.

“This one,” she slurred, “is good for healing.” Like a child, she held it in front of Thrynn’s soft brown eyes for inspection. “And this one… this one…” She paused for a particularly violent hiccough. “This one is good for potions for sneaking out of places quickly… Just add some powdered mammoth tusk, and try not to… not to…” Another, longer pause. “Throw it up…”

“If you’re going to throw up—”

“I’m not!” she squeaked. Then, with a firm straightening of her back and a determined steeling of her booze-clouded eyes, she went right back to digging through her satchel. “And this one,” she continued, “is for not freezing to death. I used this a lot before I came to the guild.”

“What does that one do?” he asked in a rumbling voice, nodding into the little leather bag. Not that he was interested, but he didn’t want her getting bored of this game. It was relaxing not to have to worry about her antics for once.

“I’m not onto that one yet! Look, I found more mountain flowers! I have to get those in before I…” A hiccough made her whole body bounce. “…move on!”

Where she would put them all, Thrynn had no clue. Just looking into the pool of water below, he could see that his beard was already full of flowers so that it was all colorful petals in the reflection.

“Aww, Thrynn!” a jeering tone sang from behind the pair. Vipir’s reflection appeared in the glassy pool above them. “You look darling this morning!”

“Shut up.”

“I’m not just flattering you. I mean it. I think I might even have a dress that would go perfectly—“

Catching Vipir by the foot, Thrynn tugged hard and let the smaller Nord fall forward into the reservoir with an unceremonious splash.

“But you know,” Brina slurred, sticking a red little blossom behind his ear, not at all bothered by the slew of profanities coming at them from below, “it does look darling…”

“Only you get to say so,” Thrynn answered through a smirk.


	2. Whatever Love Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cicero bids his farewell to Brina. Takes place in chapter 28 of Briinah's Story. Inspired by some beautiful comments left by user Neleothesze asking for more Cicero perspective.

Breath held in tense lips, he waited for her to stir. Any minute, her eyes would open, and this would get more difficult by multiples.

Their night was perfect. Perfect as he could have hoped, given the circumstances. She was fed, warm, hopeful, and he’d danced her breathless under the green auroras. Oh, how she laughed and laughed in sweet trills that drowned out the echoes of isolation that yet remained in his ears from his own years spent in solitude.

Would she suffer the same loneliness? he wondered. Would she gather the same mental and emotional scars that he had? If he ever found her again, would her laughter be warped as his was, stolen and twisted by the jester, or whatever it was that she would cling to for some semblance of comfort? Cicero considered the possibilities. None felt right to imagine. Rabid and starving? A likely fate, since she was already undernourished. Maddened by loneliness? She was too gentle, too caring to survive long alone. Her heart would be the first thing to break, then her mind.

They were different in many ways, yes, but too often he saw himself in her like looking into a gilt mirror. Gleaming golden, hopeful, good intentions and altruism where Cicero had only turned darker. Watching her family die gave her a sense of purpose. Burying them gave her strength. Sometimes when he held her hand, Cicero liked to picture it as it had been then, blistered from turning the earth, grave dirt beneath her nails. She must have looked beautiful that night.  
But tonight, his mind’s eye refused to see her at her best.

Instead, he imagined her dying a dozen different ways. Without anyone to protect her, and rarely the mindfulness to protect herself, it was bound to happen. Or starvation, slow and wasting. Or she would fall on her bad leg and be unable to hide from the elements or wild animals. It would be his fault. However it happened, her blood would be on his hands, and for once he wouldn’t like it. She wouldn’t be waiting in the Void. Her place of honor beside Sithis had been usurped by the unworthy Listener, and when Cicero fell into the darkness of eternal, blissful damnation, he would spend forever cursing that he could not dance with her.

And she would die alone. In pain. Never to hear Mother, never to speak the Binding Words that had been so very close to slipping from between her round little lips.

Cicero knew next to nothing of love; it was one of the many things he had in common with The Little Sister. Their concept of family, affection, and romance had all been badly skewed since their youth. But Cicero knew that, whatever love was supposed to be, however he was supposed to feel, this was it. Something in his heart stirred for her, a sort of wrenching nostalgic feeling that made his throat clench and stomach drop. It was pain like a knife between his ribs. It was regret like watching a cut lighten into an ugly, jagged scar. It was fear like watching fire creep closer and having nowhere to run until there was only smoke to cradle him as he fell into the eager flames.

He wanted to be covered in those hideous scars, to bleed out from a dozen different wounds, to be consumed by the fire and turned to char at her feet.

But the emperor was dead. Mother needed him. For all the years devoted equally to self-preservation and the needs of Mother, that he could want so badly to forsake it all to a feeling he felt sure would kill him seemed… funny.

He’d have a good laugh about it later, he told himself as he slid out from her bed.

He’d laugh about it all the way back to Dawnstar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if y'all have any prompts or bits you'd like to see, please by all means run them by me!!


	3. A Flair For The Dramatic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prompt meme from Tumblr, [ariakitty](http://ariakitty.tumblr.com/) asked for a drabble based on the word "Heartache." I thought it came out pretty well, so I'm putting it here, too!
> 
> So, here's a short bit on Dark Brotherhood theatrics, staring Cicero and featuring a guest appearance by Zeno.

Flair for the dramatic runs in the family. Everyone just expresses the trait differently.

For some, like the selfish and cruel Listener, it’s a demonstration of narcissism. The world belongs to him, he is the master of his own and everyone else’s destiny, and he will play with the lives - and deaths - of those around him as if it were a game. For truly, to Zeno, it is.

For others, like Nazir, it is simply part of the craft. His trade is a straightforward one, and death can be achieved as easily as an unfortunate slip getting out of bed. Dramatics make his job more than just orchestrating accidents, or stopping a heart by mundane means. As long as he is a career killer, Nazir will will make himself more than a stroke of misfortune, but an artisan looking for a challenge, a murderer seeking to make the final result more notable than, “they weren’t dead before, and now they are.”

As for dear, darling, ever-faithful Cicero? Well, to credit it all to his past traumas would be far too generous to the initial state of his soul! Long before he knew suffering, _real_ suffering, he knew the thrill of witnessing disaster. The satisfaction of watching ruin unfold and being the ruiner would define him before he ever experienced the heartbreak of being ruined himself.

Of course, when he did at last learn what pain felt like, drama did tumble and fall into outright histrionics with all the grace of an old widow shoved down a flight of stairs.

When he thought of the things he’d lost, to his own foolishness or to the avarice or wickedness of others, it wasn’t enough to do harm. No, there was more pain than he could fit in his chest, his heart burst with it, he _needed_ to let it out on someone else. He needed to make someone else feel that pain _for_ him, before it bled him out from the inside.

Betrayal. Loss. _Agony_ that writhes and twists in your gut like a serpent, like a spike. Being alone, being abandoned; having no choice to abandon those you wished you could have died for instead, ah, if only it could be so quick and painless as that!

~  
Out here in the forest of Falkreath, surely someone had been awoken by the screams. A hunter, perhaps, or a woodsman, or even just a pilgrim resting beside the road. Someone must have heard what Cicero did.

They were bandits, no one would miss them, but he wanted someone to know what happened here nonetheless. For it to haunt someone’s sleep the way Cicero’s nightmares plagued him. He didn’t want the suffering to end with his victims. If it spread, then so too would the influence of his Mother, so too would the coldness and darkness of the Void.

“Cicero?” Zeno’s voice was irate, not concerned. This wasn’t the first, or even third, time he’d tried getting Cicero’s attention. “Would you snap out of it? Help me rebuild their fire, I’m freezing, and I’d like to get some fucking sleep.”

“Of course, Listener, I live to serve!” he sang.

The bandit camp was their camp now. Cicero barely bothered to move the bodies out of the way; he rolled them down the slope they’d nested on, to fall down to the road below.

“You’ve been getting worse,” Zeno said. “You’re so distracted all the time, you’re starting to lack finesse. It definitely shouldn’t have taken you that many cuts to finish them. And now I have a headache.”  
~

The Listener wondered why Cicero kept making it loud. Kept making it bloody, kept making it excessive, kept making it _messy_ , and the answer was really just that simple, he needed for someone else to feel it.

And the Listener was off-limits.


	4. Fifth of Last Seed, 4E 192

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt meme fill for [Fluttermoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluttermoth)/[ariakitty](http://ariakitty.tumblr.com/fics) on Tumblr.
> 
> “You can’t just leave like this.”

Sometimes, standing outside in the summer air, she imagined that she could smell the warm sugar and tropical flora on the wind blowing up from the provinces to the south. The West Weald was so close to such extraordinary places, Elswyr and Valenwood and even stranger places beyond, so close to absolutely unknown and mysterious worlds; you’d never know it from where she stood, though, slowly sinking in the stinking mud that spread off the Strid River’s interconnected aqueducts into the farmland of Kvatch. **  
**

The mud, the bugs, the miles of boring fields with a few goblin hovels hidden under rocks. Even the city of Kvatch itself was famously uninteresting compared to the more fantastical, metropolitan cities further away – places she’d never yet dreamt of seeing.

So this was no surprise. At least, it shouldn’t have been. Why, oh why, would she expect a young man of such promise, such talent, such potential, to stay in this wretched place?

“Stop crying,” her brother cooed, using a sweet tone more suited to a baby than a nearly-gown girl. He walked her through the steps, control her breathing, dry her eyes, count the stars, relax, just like he’d done a thousand times before.

“But you just came back,” his sister complained. “You can’t just leave. Not like this. You _just_  came back!”

He laughed, kind and patient.  _Merciful_. “I can’t exactly stay, either. This is the first place they’ll look for me.”

“Because you broke so many laws! You knew you’d be in trouble!” He  _always_  had to break so many rules!

Her brother laughed again, this time more cruelly. The cold, uncaring sound was directed his former far-off officers, wherever they were, and certainly not the fifteen-year-old girl in front of him. “I only took what I needed. I needed provisions, I needed weapons, I needed stuff to sell for money.”

Too much. Again, and as always, too much.

“But hey, listen, don’t be sad! I got to come home and see you, right? And maybe, if I can get my bounty cleared –” was that even possible? “– I’ll be able to come back without having to worry about any pesky guards. Now, chin up! That’s a good girl. You’re going to be just fine without me, you’ll see!”

“Mother and Father want you to stay, too! They miss you!” his sister argued, pitch rising as panic began to overwhelm her. “They wish you were the one they got to keep, not me. Please, please stay.”

“Don’t talk like that.” He said it like a parent. Like how she imagined other people’s mothers and fathers spoke to their children, voice full of love and compassion. What mercy must sound like. “They love you very much. You just haven’t had a chance to show them how wonderful you are yet. They don’t see you like I see you, but that’ll change.”

She could make him invisibility potions, like she did to help him make mischief back before he left for the legion two years ago. She could remain ever vigilant, always keeping an eye out for soldiers coming near the farmstead. She could learn to cast magic better, to defend him if ever they found themselves in dire straits.

But none of that mattered, and she knew it.

He wasn’t out here saying goodbye to her because he expected her to try and change his mind. This was inevitable, and always had been.

He was going to be a hero. He was going to be a legend. He was going to do something incredible. She’d known that her entire life, since she was a little, little girl drawing pretend Elder Scrolls with sticks with him in the very mud her shuffling feet now slid.

“I’ll make you proud,” he said instead of farewell. He kissed the words into the crown of her head. “I promise.”


End file.
